KARACHI: Expressing what appears to be a clear lack of confidence in the Sindh government, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan on Thursday appealed to the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) to take notice of “corruption, bad governance and injustices” being meted out to the people of urban areas of the province and issue an order to bring them at par with those living in rural areas.

MQM-P convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui made this appeal while speaking at a press conference here at the party’s temporary headquarters in Bahadurabad.

The MQM-P and the Mustafa Kamal-led Pak Sarzameen Party have been levelling serious allegations of having an “ethnic bias and being racist” against the Pakistan Peoples Party government in Sindh and they feel that the recent appointments made by the provincial government through the Sindh Public Service Commission (SPSC) is an ample proof of the veracity of their allegations.

First PSP president Anis Kaimkhani alleged that not a single person appointed recently belonged to Karachi and on Thursday Dr Siddiqui of the MQM-P made a similar claim.

Dr Siddiqui said the world over laws and constitutions were made for the benefit of the people but in Sindh people’s fundamental rights had been violated for the past 50 years.

Khalid Maqbool says rulers should tell people if they have decided to show less population of Karachi in census

He said the “racist and biased” government of Sindh had intentionally marginalised and pushed towards backwardness the urban parts of the province.

He alleged that the PPP-led Sindh government was fanning ethnic sentiments as per a well-thought-out plan.

Giving a recent example of what he called the ethnic bias in providing government jobs, he said the PPP government had appointed 151 officers through the SPSC but none of them was Urdu-speaking.

“This government has been ruling the province for the last around 13 years and how it has destroyed Karachi, which with its 30 million people contributed 70 per cent to the national income and 90pc to the Sindh government, is in front of everyone,” he said.

He said the Supreme Court had been taking suo motu notices of different matters and it should also take notice of the “injustices” meted out to urban areas of Sindh.

Dr Siddiqui recalled that his party took to the Supreme Court its reservations on the process of sixth population census and all the concerns were found to be true later, but no hearing was held on the MQM’s plea.

He said half of Karachi’s population was not even counted and shown in the results of the census. “People should be told if a decision has been made to show less population of Karachi.”

The MQM-P convener requested the chief justice of Pakistan to give a decision so that the people of urban areas of Sindh could consider themselves as equal citizens with those living in the rural areas of the province.

He said the people of Karachi had been regularly paying all just and unjust taxes while enduring all injustices.

He claimed that when the MQM was in power it had provided every possible facility, including ventilators, to hospitals in urban areas of Sindh.

He said that despite limited resources the MQM had distributed among lockdown-hit people 150,000 ration bags in Karachi and 25,000 bags in other parts of the province.

Senior leaders Kanwar Naveed Jameel, Federal IT and Telecom Minister Aminul Haque, Zahid Mansoori and Mehfooz Yar Khan were also present.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2020